The Lakers' Julius Randle rests between plays during the first half of an NBA summer league game against the Warriors on Monday. JOHN LOCHER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS – The bedroom in the brick house in McKinney, Texas, is painted blue, because every team Julius Randle ever played for wore blue.

The Texas Titans. The Prestonwood Christian Lions. The Kentucky Wildcats. On the walls are pictures of Randle from every year he played with his old teams.

On the desk where Randle did his homework is a water glass with the Lakers logo. Now that logo goes everywhere Randle does. He posed before it when he got his No. 30 jersey; it’s on his chest at the NBA’s summer league in Las Vegas, where Monday he finished with 14 points, four rebounds, three assists and a block in an 89-88 overtime win over the Golden State Warriors.

But back in McKinney, the glass is the last remaining piece of what used to be quite a collection. There were Lakers posters and T-shirts commemorating championships; pairs of Kobe Bryant Nikes. There used to be a picture of Bryant in a hard plastic case that Randle’s mom bought at a mall, but she says he took that with him when he went to Kentucky last fall.

On June 26, Randle sat nervously during the early stages of the NBA draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Through the first six picks, his mother, Carolyn Kyles, kept telling him to sit up straight, because his name was going to be called any minute.

“When it got to Boston (at No. 6),” Randle said, “I saw the cameras come up and I was like, ‘I’m going to Boston.’ Then they picked Marcus Smart.”

The seventh pick was held by the Lakers. General Manager Mitch Kupchak had told Randle they liked him – he loved them – but doubted he would be available with their pick. Yet here he was. Commissioner Adam Silver began the announcement.

“You know there’s no other Julius out there,” Kyles said, “and it’s my son and he’s going to a team that he’s loved all of his life. And play with the player that was his idol. How often does that happen to someone? That’s a dream.”

“… Randle from the University of Kentucky.”

Randle leaned back in his chair and exhaled toward the ceiling. He hugged his mom. He slapped hands and then hugged Kentucky coach John Calipari. He stumbled over a step on his way onto the stage to shake hands with Silver.

Now, dreams come true all the time. Dreams came true for 60 players that night in New York. What makes Randle’s special is how that dream was nurtured and by whom.

EARLY PROMISE

Kyles was a basketball player, too – a “hooper,” Randle says – although she said as a gangly high school freshman she didn’t even sign up for the team because she feared she would embarrass herself. But coaches insisted and by the time she graduated she was the only member of her high school team who held a college scholarship.

She went to a Texas junior college before enrolling at the University of Texas-Arlington. She wore No. 30.

As the now-familiar story goes, when Randle started playing and wanted to wear his mother’s number, she told him, “If you’re going to wear it, you better do something with it.”

Kyles says she never quite loved basketball the way her son would. It paid for her education, and allowed her to become an accountant and to raise two kids as a single mother with Randle’s father out of the picture.

Then she rediscovered it through Julius.

Even in kindergarten Randle was the tallest boy, and his mother recognized his basketball skill. She played him up a level, with the first-graders.

Quickly Randle was a star on the youth circuit, and coaches were always trying to convince Kyles to sign him up with their teams.

“But we didn’t jump teams,” she said.

When Randle was in the fifth grade, Jeff Webster, a former Oklahoma star who played briefly in the NBA, came to see what the fuss was about. Webster coached the Texas Titans, a nationally known AAU program.

They met after a game, and Kyles says she saw an instant connection between the two, one reaching deeper than basketball.

“When I got him there was a lot of adversity that he had dealt with already,” Webster said, “and my biggest deal was being that mentor/father/coach/big brother.”

That bond only grew deeper. While Kyles worked, Webster would pick Randle up from school. They would go to the gym together, and Randle hung out at Webster’s house, where Jeff’s wife, Thyra, would whip up dinner.

“He’d go fishing with Jeff, work with Jeff out in the yard, doing those son and dad things,” Kyles said. “They just connect so well.”

The lack of a male influence Randle experienced growing up without a father did not deeply influence Randle. At least he does not seem to believe so now.

“Not having my dad in the house really wasn’t tough for me,” he said, “because my mom in the house is really all I know.”

Kyles appointed Webster Randle’s godfather. And Jeff and Thyra were at the table in Brooklyn with Randle, Kyles, Calipari and George Bass, Randle’s agent, when he was drafted.

“He's just like my son,” Webster said. “My kids, that's their big brother. He references my kids as his little brother and little sister. It's part of our life.”

“It became like two families into one,” Randle said.

Where basketball was concerned, Webster could pick up where Kyles left off. He had accomplished all of the things Randle aspired to: big-time college player (Webster was first team All-Big Eight at OU) and the NBA (Webster was drafted No. 40 overall by Miami in 1994).

Slowly, those things began to come into focus for Randle, too. He had all of the college offers, picking Kentucky over Kansas and Florida. But his senior year at Prestonwood Academy was derailed when he broke the fifth metatarsal in his right foot in the second game of the season against Duncanville.

“I was literally about to have 50 that game,” Randle said, still shaking his head at the opportunity lost.

Randle had surgery to fix the fracture, but the injury would come to define Randle’s pre-draft experience, with reports leaking that Randle would require more surgery after the draft to replace the screw. The injury cost Randle most of his senior season, but he returned for the postseason and averaged 28.8 points, 15 rebounds and four blocks in five games to lead Prestonwood to the state championship.

He was granted a special exemption to play in the prestigious McDonald’s All-American Game, despite not playing in the minimum number of games.

At Kentucky, Randle played in 40 games, untroubled by the foot, and led the nation with 24 double-doubles.

MORE THAN A GAME

Kyles said she told Randle, even when he was young, that studies showed a boy raised by a single mother would have a hard time being successful.

“I told him we were going to break statistics,” she said.

In nearly every interview he does, Randle is sure to mention that he learned his work ethic from his mother, that watching her provide for him and his older sister, Nastassia, fueled his desire to get to the NBA. When Randle needed a new pair of Kobe’s sneakers in high school, Kyles worked overtime.

She glows about his grades, and said he is a strong Christian like she taught him. He speaks well and looks people in the eye when he talks to them. He has, she said, a wonderful smile. Basketball is the reason people know about her son, but it’s not what defines their relationship.

“But Julius Randle being a successful young man,” she said, “I know I did my job as a parent, more than what he did on the basketball court. Because that will come and go.”

Kyles handed off ownership of her son’s basketball development to Webster, who then passed it along to Calipari. Now, all of them are giving it over to Mitch Kupchak and Kobe Bryant. And that's not the end, it's not even bittersweet.

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.